KARACHI: Mayor Murtaza Wahab on Tuesday lashed out at the Jamaat-i-Islami and Muttah­ida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan and accused them of introducing commercialisation of public spaces and ‘China cutting’ — the jargon refers to the practice of slicing below 120 square-yard plots from parks and land earmarked for public amenities — that, he said, ruined the infrastructure of the metropolis.

He was talking to reporters outside the office of the deputy commissioner-South, where he had gone for scrutiny of his nomination paper he had filed last week to contest the Nov 5 by-elections on a union committee (UC) seat in Saddar Town. He has submitted nomination papers from two others UCs as well.

Commenting on the deteriorating infrastructure of the city, Barrister Wahab recalled the 1980s’ local government system and said it was the JI’s mayor Abdul Sattar Afghani who had introduced commercialisation of the city’s roads.

“And then it was [JI’s] another mayor, Naimatullah Khan, who brought the billboard mafia,” he said.

Says former Karachi mayors Naimatullah Khan and Mustafa Kamal brought ‘billboard mafia, culture of China cutting’ in city

“I don’t blame his intention. He would have definitely done that to generate revenue but at what cost? It brought the billboard mafia in the system and you see what havoc it played with the city infrastructure after that policy,” he said.

The PPP mayor didn’t even spare the ruling partner in the recently dissolved Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) government in the Centre, the MQM-P, and blamed its key leader of “bringing mafia and encroachers” in Karachi.

He even accused the MQM-P of selling the plots through “China cutting”.

“I don’t hesitate to name him,” he said. “It was Mustafa Kamal as city Nazim who brought this culture of China cutting in this city. He moved the people from Lines Area and encroached on the land of treatment plant in Mahm­oodabad in the name of resettlement. He had allowed more than 1,000 shops over nullah of New Karachi. I feel really sorry when people like him criticise us.”

He also shared key plans of his government focusing smooth flow of traffic, safe pedestrian facility and people-friendly roads and infrastructure that were set to be launched in next few weeks. One of them, he said, included revamping of 105 city roads in a move to beautify them and make them safer.

“The smooth functioning of street lights is definitely a major problem,” he said. “But there’s a serious shortage of power supply. In most of the areas where you don’t find these lights functioning is due to load shedding. So we are going to shift them to solar energy. We are going to sign a contract with a private party in this regard. The private party has been chosen only to keep check and balance. The KMC would only monitor the operation for transparency,” he added.

He also claimed major success in recent operation against water theft and vowed that he would not come under any “pressure and propaganda” that emerged after the mafia suffered “major blow.”

“Water supply is the biggest problem of this city. The operation we have done against the water theft and illegal hydrants is visible. We are also breaking the network that was actively involved in water theft in the industrial areas,” added Mr Wahab.

Published in Dawn, October 11th, 2023